Guest opinion: Dear Stephen Colbert - listen up

(The following is an excerpt from a letter written by Mark A. Carter to Stephen Colbert).

Dear Mr. Colbert:

I am offended by puerile humor when it comes at the expense of others. So, when you stated recently in The Colbert Report that Windsor, Ontario Canada is the “Earth’s rectum,” I felt compelled to respond. Windsor is Canada’s busiest port. And I can see how you might confuse port, portal, and rectum. After all, it takes one to know one. But asserting that Windsor is the de facto “rectum of the world,” is going a bit far. By doing so, you are also suggesting that everyone in this city is a rectum. And I guess you’re calling me a rectum as well. So, here is some feedback:

I would be the first to admit that, seen from satellite perspective, the Detroit River that passes from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie does indeed look like a rectum which, I suppose, would make the lake freighters that propel downstream with loads of iron ore from Duluth the feculence.

But how do you explain the ships going upstream with loads of Cleveland coal and Windsor salt headed for Chicago?

I’m sure that Canada Steamship Lines, the Seafarers Union, the Canadian Mine Workers Union, the United Mine Workers of America, and the cities of Chicago, Cleveland, and Duluth would all like to take you out back and make a philosophical point or two.

I am similarly confused about your paradigm concerning the traffic that flows back and forth across the Ambassador Bridge between Canada and the US. By insulting Windsor, you are also insulting Detroit, the people of Michigan, and the workers there who make it Motor City.

I want you to ponder the implications of offending Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors, all who have a presence in both cities. By calling Windsor the “Earth’s rectum,” you have suggested that these manufacturers are rectums, and that the fine products they produce are feculence. Oops. I think there are a lot of people standing in line now, including the UAW, who would also like to take you out back to make a philosophical point or two. Your mamma …

Inadvertently, by being a smart aleck instead of being smart, by giving national publicity to Windsor, you have elevated this “working town.” In fact, you have elevated the entire area surrounding Windsor, according to “Central Place Theory,” stretching from Cleveland to Chicago, and made it the “Axis mundi.” For a buck-toothed, banjo-plucking, slack-jawed, slope-headed, and deep-fried turkey eatin’ yokel like you, that means the “Earth’s navel.” So, I thank you. Being the “Axis mundi” is prestigious, to say the least.

The next time you pick lint out of your navel I am sure you will think about me, this letter, the residents and workers of Windsor and Detroit, the companies, the unions, the residents of the Great Lakes Basin, the country of Canada, and probably the entire world, who you have offended. I think, off-hand, that you have also insulted the “black hole” of Calcutta who wants its title restored. But rest assured, this insult will not be forgotten. We here in the mid-west have long memories. And every time we take a dump we will be thinking about you.

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